MarketingSherpa Summary - Why They Won:
Any marketer working for a membership organization or rewards/points-based
organization where customers need to access accounts fairly frequently should check this
campaign to see if it might apply their needs. By being placed on the desktop, the
application becomes a stand-out handy tool that users never have to log into. No wonder
it's such a tremendous success.

From Their Nomination Form:
RCI's vacation exchange system requires frequent communication with its members to
allow timeshare owners to trade their vacation week for another similar unit. RCI desired
a new communication channel to provide its members with near real-time vacation
inventory availability thus allowing them to more easily make decisions on what vacation
to purchase, ultimately decreasing the expense to the call centers. RCI worked with e-
Dialog to develop a stand-alone application to give members a tool that monitors
timeshare availability and provides relevant, up-to-date vacationing and account
information through the use of really simple syndication (RSS). Given that RSS adoption
among Web users has been slow, especially with RCI's core audience of baby boomers,
RCI and e-Dialog partnered with third-party RSS expert The Port to design an RCI-
branded RSS application called "myRCI" that members would download to their
desktops. To deploy myRCI, RCI needed to promote the application through its existing
call center and e-mail marketing programs.

While call center representatives promoted the application via the phone, RCI and e-
Dialog set up an email acquisition campaign to introduce all RCI members to the
application and provide them with valuable information and the benefits that the tool has
to offer. The email encouraged members to click through to an e-Dialog-hosted myRCI
registration page, where they are asked for their member ID and ZIP Code. For this
solution to be successful RCI needed to publish relevant information to its members. To
do so, RCI used existing data (member account information), acquired new data (through
the development of a preference center) and integrated third-party content such as
weather reports and articles related to known customer preferences. Member account
information is automatically published into a feature of myRCI called Account Alerts,
informing customers of the status of their membership and of expiring points. When a
member starts myRCI, e-Dialog sends the Account Alert RSS feeds to their application
for viewing. Similarly, RCI feeds relevant vacation information and additional value
added content to the myRCI application. Sorry, the judges promised this winner that we
would keep their results private. However, be assured that we have seen all the data - and
were thoroughly impressed!